advice from a fake consultant

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

It is less than 72 hours until Alberto Gonzales’ deadline to provide an explanation as to how he and FBI Director Robert Mueller can disagree so completely, in sworn testimony, about that infamous hospital meeting with John Ashcroft.

I am here today to provide, via an exclusive and unnamed source, the first explanation that can completely exonerate Gonzales.

You may recall Gonzales testifying that he and James Comey and Ashcroft were discussing “other intelligence activities”, not the warrantless wiretap program.

In the same testimony, Gonzales indicated that he was not completely free, for National Security reasons, to disclose all the information that could potentially clear his reputation.

Mueller disagrees.He says there was one, and only one, “intelligence activity” discussed at that meeting: the warrantless wiretap program. James Comey has offered testimony that suggests he would back Mueller’s story

The White House wants you to know (click on Press Briefing for July 31st) that no perjury occurred.

To the casual observer, it would appear that either Gonzales or Mueller have stepped in something, and it ain’t the truth.

However, I’m here to announce, as a relieved citizen/journalist, that I have gained access to new information which seems to clear the Attorney General completely.

To explain everything, I’ll have to go into deep background.

Our story begins at the Groom Lake, Nevada facility (a location popularly known as Area 51), where it has always been rumored that the US Government has maintained a number of secret resources.

It has been suggested that some of these resources are UFO-related.As it turns out, the rumors are true.But not quite the way everyone thinks.

It was always the story that the first alien encounter occurred near Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, but that is not actually true.

“You will dress only in attire specially sanctioned by M.I.B. special services. You'll conform to the identity we give you. Eat where we tell you. Live where we tell you. From now on, you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You will not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You are a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu, and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist. You were never even born. Anonymity is your name, silence is your native tongue. You are no longer part of the system. You are above the system, over it, beyond it. We're "them." We're "they." We are the Men In Black.”

As it turns out, Zed’s “fictional” quote is the exact literal truth.There is a Men In Black agency.And it is located at Area 51.And I have the proof.

Check out this page from the Federation of American Scientists’ website.At the very bottom of the page is satellite imagery showing “New Construction-South Base”; and you can see the construction of what is purported to be a small weapons storage area, which was operating in March of 1998.

This was actually just four months, my source tells me, after the first alien encounter, where Bill Clinton agreed to allow the United States to serve as a refuge for a race of aliens suffering from an environmental disaster on their home planet.

Take a look at this enlarged photograph of the facility (click on the top image to enlarge). What do you see?

A central “landing pad” surrounded by five hangar-like structures, that’s what.In the upper left of the image is the human entrance to the underground facility, and to the right are the administration and security buildings.

To the right of the “landing pad”, where the arrow-like pattern lines on the ground meet, is the alien reception center. To the extreme left are the two auxiliary landing strips, although just as with human spaceflight, most takeoffs, and many landings, are vertical.

A series of cover stories have been floated over the past several years to cover the new activity-including rumors that the facility is going to close.

As you saw in the movie, we have been able to benefit greatly from the technology that we have been offered by our new extraterrestrial friends, and this is where the story finally all comes together.

As it turns out, Gonzales actually was there to talk to Ashcroft about an intelligence activity so secret, so unbelievable, that even here the exact nature of the program cannot be disclosed.

The program was so secret, that neither Comey, nor Ashcroft, nor Mueller could be trusted with the secret after it was disclosed.

And this is why Gonzales was forced to use that “flashy thing” (the Neuralizer) from the movie to erase their memories; and then plant the false story that they had been talking about the warrantless wireless program the whole time.

And that’s the entire, “God’s honest truth” story.

Gonzales did go to the hospital that night to discuss an intelligence activity other than the warrantless wiretap program, for National Security reasons he cannot disclose the nature of the activities, and the activities are so secret that all the other participants had their memories erased and a false story planted as a precaution.

Now, does that clear everything up fpr you?No further questions?If so, thank you for your attention, and have a nice day.

Do you have further questions?If so, I need you to look closely at this ligh........

Much to The Girlfriend’s chagrin, I can spend a ridiculous amount of time watching episodes of the show on DVD-and then watching them again, just for the commentaries (and many thanks to Conan O’Brien for participating in my favorite commentary ever).

For those not familiar (is that possible?) the Simpsons are a family from Springfield who have engaged in an exhausting variety of adventures over the past 20 years.

Homer has been an astronaut, a bootlegger, the manager of an outsourced Indian nuclear power plant, and was once required to run up both World Trade Center towers to use the restroom. His wife, Marge, was once Springfield’s only competent police officer.

The kids? Maggie turned out to be the role Elizabeth Taylor was born to play, and Bart was/will be impaled upon Lisa’s Pulitzer Prize one day in the past/future.

The neighbors? These three: super do-gooder Ned Flanders, Moe Szyslak (owner of Moe’s Tavern, and the victim of Bart’s crank calls), and Ted Kenned...sorry, Mayor Quimby (“It's time we face up to the unface-up-to-able”) are just the tip of the Springfield iceberg, and the opening montage of the show pans across a group of about 80 or so of them; which can be seen if you’re inclined to use the “single-frame advance” function of your DVD player to its best advantage.

Having introduced the players, let’s talk about the hype.

In other circumstances, a film will seek some marketing tie-ins, and the characters might even be associated with some products, in an effort to create more “name recognition” for the associated entities.

This is not without precedent, as the TV show’s producers also experimented with, and have actually released, a small number of character-related products over the years.

The Simpsons Movie tie-ins are neatly catalogued by Rohit Bhargava’s “Influential Marketing Blog”, and I heard they even ran a few TV ads to promote the movie, but that may just be a rumor.

Despite the underground and secretive nature of the movie’s release, your friendly fake consultant was able to locate a midnight screening of the film at Paul Allen’s Cinerama Theatre (super cushy chairs...mmmmmmmm) in Seattle on Thursday night/Friday morning.

All kidding aside, there were no obvious promotional efforts underway outside the event itself. No costumed Homer-headed individuals were to be seen; no, not even a Marge wig amongst the audience of 800 or so. The lobby was not decorated, no radio station was broadcasting live, and even the snack bar was operating sans doughnuts.

Nonetheless, the crowd was obviously in the mood, and it was clear they were ready to enjoy the movie-or to burn down the theatre if things should turn out badly.

As a complete “Simpsons” geek, I forced The Girlfriend not just to attend, but to sit right down front (4th row). She was not exactly amused, but she knows how bad I am, and she kindly went along to provide support.

So, does the movie stand up to the hype?

Very much so.

To put it another way, you absolutely do not see all the best parts in the commercials.

There are very few moments that are not funny; and there are many jokes that are funny in the way that “old school” cartoons are funny-jokes that are funny on different levels for kids, teenagers, and adults. One example is a Richard Nixon reference that older audience members found funny, but the small flock of 13 year-olds next to us did not.

In the commentaries that accompany the show’s DVDs, the “show runners” discuss the process of audience testing that is used to “tighten up” a show...basically a process of showing the existing version of the effort to test audiences, watching the reaction, removing the parts where no one laughs, and replacing it with something that does get the audience laughing.

This process was clearly used to great effect-I lost count, but at least 25 times I was laughing with surprise at something a Springfieldadinian (or whatever they’re called) was up to.

And the real test...the next day, The Girlfriend was spontaneously telling people how much she enjoyed the film-something I never expected.

The larger world seems to be enjoying the movie as well-it is reported that the film is grossing higher than predicted, and the most optimistic estimates suggest grosses could surpass the $70 million production cost before Monday.

Additionally, as with the best of the show’s episodes, there are so many inside jokes, frame-by-frame “click throughs”, and obscure movie references that DVD sales will be brisk-and I’m predicting here that a soundtrack-matching “Pink Doughnut” version of the DVD will be available for Christmas release.

To wrap it all up: having had a couple of days to let it sink in, I would heartily recommend the film for the most fervent of “Simpsons” geeks-and for humans, too! Find the largest screen you can, and if you let the kids watch the TV show, take ‘em along-they’ll hear a couple dirty words, and see one “naughty” visual image, but it’ll be OK.

And now for the official rating:

On a scale of $2.99 (if I found it somewhere, used) to retail, I would pay at least $12.99 for the DVD, and if it was in cool limited-edition packaging, I might even pay retail.

And that’s the same rating I would give “Sicko”, which means, for my money, these have been the best two films of the year so far.

“...One form of “lost dollars” has historically been the money owed by parents for school lunches that are essentially provided “on credit”. Basically what happens is a kid might forget his lunch money that day...and the school covers the money until they can collect the debt...

...With that in mind, it’s no surprise that schools would look for ever-more-creative ways to collect debts; but even considering all that I found myself shocked by this LA Times article entitled: “On school menus: cheese sandwiches, parental debt”...

...If a parent owes the district more than $5 in meal money...the district will basically...repossess lunch...

...Picture two second-graders in the cafeteria line. As they get to the yummy pizza, the first little girl gets her slice of pepperoni. But not the second girl.

She gets a cheese sandwich.

That’s right-this school district, and numerous others nationwide, have special school lunch “options” for those students who have parents that owe money-and in Calloway County, Kentucky, it only takes $3.00”

To make things worse, the story discusses the practice of finding nutritious, but unappetizing, foods that can be offered to the kids to shame them into getting the money from their parents.

Additionally, the story pointed to several independent sources that suggest using food as a tool for debt collection in the lunchroom is counteracting the lessons taught right down the hall in the classrooms by the USDA’s “Team Nutrition” program-a $500 million dollar annual investment in grants and other aid used by virtually all school districts to teach our kids healthier eating habits.

Of course, there’s a lot more than $500 million at stake-heart attack, stroke, and diabetes are all frequently traced to unhealthy diet, and the cost of those disorders runs into the tens, and perhaps hundreds, of billions of dollars annually.

Part two of the story (On Facts And Figures, Or, Over 187 Billion Served) is a dollars and cents, facts and figures kind of story-where the funding for school meals (more or less $37 billion) comes from, and where it goes, how many kids are served (about 9 million daily), and lots more detailed number crunching.

Did you know the School Lunch Program was not started out of an interest in serving America’s poor? Did you know it was originally conceived because of National Security concerns? That was also some of the ground we covered in part two; as well as the often unrecognized relationship between the Program and the Black Panthers.

We also talked about our desire to create a survey that you, the reader, might administer to your local school districts so that a national perspective might be obtained.

Finally, it was announced that the parents that are at the heart of all of this have contacted me, that they have created an email address (ForAllTheKids@gmail.com); and that they would enjoy your messages of support.

Having thus dealt with the old business; let us now move on to new business.

First, “informed sources” tell me that Fabian Nuñez, the Speaker of the California State Assembly, has become aware of this issue and may be investigating the problem in the near future. (To get an idea about where the Speaker stands on these sorts of issues, check out the video of the Speaker and Michael Moore discussing “Sicko” at its US premiere.)

To help get the ball rolling, I’d like to ask the community to take a second and encourage the Speaker with a quick email (use the “Contact the Speaker” link at the very bottom right corner or bottom center of the page) complimenting him on this interest and maybe even pointing out that he’s a generally nice guy-which, from a distance, he seems to be. (For purposes of disclosure, Nuñez is associated with the Hilary Clinton campaign.)

Next, we have a survey...in fact, we have two.More about that in a minute.

But before we put up the surveys, I want to talk about the options for returning the results.

The survey will be on this page-so you can copy and paste the version you want to use; and then either print the questions or copy them to a digital device, like a phone, BlackBerry or PDA.

If you are text-savvy, the results won’t need to be typed-but for the rest of us, we have two ways to avoid the typing process after the survey is completed.

One is to fax the results to the parents at (206) 312-1612.

The other option is a little different, and I’ll take a second to walk through what you do.

There is a website in India called NowPos (NowPossible...) that allows you to create voice emails using a microphone attached to your computer; and this will allow you to “dictate” the results, and then send that email to the ForAllTheKids@gmail.com address. You’ll have to create an account to do this, but there is no charge for the service.

And finally, we discuss the surveys.

Basically what we are trying to do is get the “nuts and bolts” of how local districts treat the “alternate lunch” question and information about Federal meal reimbursement. There are also a series of questions that focus on whether Districts employ an outside contractor to manage their foodservice programs.

There are two versions of the survey, a 52 question version, and a 26 question version. It is estimated that the longer version will take about 30 to 45 minutes to complete, but the shorter version will provide the most basic information if a respondent is reluctant to offer that much time.

We encourage you to direct the survey to a School District’s food service director-alternatively, an assistant superintendent or other similar manager should be able to answer many of these questions. To quote from the survey itself:

“To begin, call your school district child nutrition service office or food service office and ask to speak with someone familiar with the process for handling past due payments on student meal accounts.”

The parents would also like to be informed if a District refuses to complete the survey. In that event, please send an email to the ForAllTheKids@gmail.com address with the details.

With all that said, here is the long version of the survey:

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ALTERNATE MEAL SURVEY (LONG VERSION)

We prefer this “Long” survey, as the extra questions and answers will help us to better understand what is happening in school districts around the country.

This is a series of questions designed to evaluate the nature of alternate meal service (meals served to students who have parents with negative meal payment accounts) in elementary school districts across the country. The survey should take about 30 to 45 minutes to complete. The questions will relate to the financial and operational aspects of your school’s food service operations, and we greatly appreciate your assistance in helping us gather the most complete information possible.

At the end of the survey we’ll ask for your name and contact information; but we won’t use your name without asking your permission first.

To begin, call your school district child nutrition service office or food service office and ask to speak with someone familiar with the process for handling past due payments on student meal accounts.

School District:_____________________________________________

City and State:_____________________________________________

1) Do you allow students to charge cafeteria meals to an account?

___Yes

___No – We do not allow meals to be charged to an account

2) Do you serve an alternate meal for

___Breakfast

___Lunch

___No alternate meal served

3) What do you charge for:

Alternate Meals Reduced Price meals Full Pay Meals

Breakfast $___________ $______________ $_____________

Lunch $___________ $______________ $______________

4) Please describe the alternate meals your school district serves.

5) Do you have more than one alternate meal?

___Yes ______ If yes, how many?

___No

___Don’t know

6) Do you use donated government commodities (food items) in your alternate meal?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

7) Can any student purchase the alternate meal?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

8) Is the alternate meal a regular menu item?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

9) Is the alternate meal policy different for younger students (Kindergarten, first grade) or Special Education students?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

10) Do alternate meal students make their own menu choices, or are the students served without choices?

___Students make their own choices

___Students do not choose

___Don’t know

11) Do non-alternate meal students make their own menu choices, or are those students served without choices?

21) Are students with a negative balance given written notice before an alternate meal is served?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

22) If you give students written notice, how is that notice provided?(Please check all that apply)

___Email

___Letter (Standard mail, Certified mail, or Registered mail)

___Note sent home with child

___Don’t know

___Other (Please describe):

23) Sometimes Free meal students have a negative balance that was incurred before the Free meal application was approved. Do free meal students continue to get an alternate meal because of the old outstanding debt?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

24) If a Free meal student is receiving the alternate meal, do they receive the meal until the negative balance is paid?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

25) Is there a time limit to how long a student can receive the alternate meal?

___Yes (If yes, what is the limit?____________________)

___No

___Don’t know

26) If there is a limit, what happens when the limit is reached?

27) Do you offer a payment plan to families with negative balances; and if yes, does the child get a regular meal once the family is on a payment plan?

___No payment plan offered

___Payment plan offered, child remains on alternate meal

___Payment plan offered, child returns to regular meal choices

___Don’t know

28) Is the alternate meal a reimbursable meal under the National School Lunch Program? If yes, how much money do you receive from your State and the Federal government for each reimbursable meal? Federal reimbursement State reimbursement

Full Pay $______________ $______________

Reduced Pay $______________ $______________

Free Lunch $______________ $______________

___Alternate meal not reimbursable

29) Do you get reimbursed by your State and the Federal Government, if you DO NOT CHARGE the student’s account for the alternate meal?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

30) If you serve an alternate meal, is the meal a nutritionally complete meal?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

31) When all students have received their lunch, are leftover hot food items or other non-spoiled food items thrown away?

___Yes

___Don’t know

___No (If the answer is no, please describe how the food is re-used below)

32) At what dollar amount do you notify parents that their account balance is getting low?

$______________

___Parents not notified.

33) How do you notify parents of a negative balance?(Please check all that apply)

___ Advance written notice

___Written notice after student reaches negative balance

___Letter (Standard mail, Certified mail, or Registered mail)

___ By telephone

___Don’t know

___Other (please describe):

34) Please describe how you reach out to families who are potentially eligible for Reduced Price or Free meals.

35) Please describe how you reach out and communicate with families who are NOT PAYING their cafeteria balances.

36) Which, if any, of these methods have you used to collect debt owed for meals? (Please check all that apply)

___ Demand Letters

___ Credit Bureau reporting

___ Collection Agencies

___ Small Claims Court

___ None of these methods

___ Don’t know

___ Other (please describe):

37) If you have an alternate meal, were any of these legal measures attempted to hold parents accountable before the alternate meal program began?

___Yes

___No

___No alternate meal program

38) What is the current total debt for meals owed in your school district?

$_____________________

39) What happens with the debt owed when the student transfers out of your school district (due to promotion/graduation or moving away)?

40) What was last year’s write off for debt by your school district for unpaid meals?

$______________________

41) Do you have a school board policy for collecting unpaid debt?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

42) Do you do any of the following to try and get parents to pay the past due balance? (Please check all that apply)

___ Withhold report cards

___Withhold transcripts

___Not allow children to participate in graduation ceremonies

___Not allow children to participate in 6th grade camp

___Don’t know

___Other (please describe below):

43) If parents pre-pay in advance for their child’s meals, do you give them a discount (Dollar amount Discount, Percentage Discount, Free Meals)?

Dollar amount Discount Percentage Discount Free Meals

Full Pay $______________ ______________ _________

Reduced Pay $______________ ______________ _________

___No Discount Given

44) At the end of the school year, some parents who pre-pay for meals have a positive balance. What happens to that money? What happens if their child is graduating or leaving the district and the money is not requested?

45) Does your District have a written alternate meal policy?

___Yes (If yes, is it a School Board policy? _____ Yes ______ No)

___No

___Don’t know

46) Does your District have written or verbal directives for staff on how and when to serve the alternate meal?

___Written Directives

___Verbal Directives

___No Directives

___Don’t know

47) Does your District employ a food services consulting or management company?

___Yes (If yes, what is the Company’s name/s_________________________)

___No

___Don’t know

48) If you employ a food services consulting or management company, how many consultants do you have and how much are they paid?

_______________ Number of consultants

$______________________ Total paid per year for all consultants

___None employed

49) If you employ a food services consulting or management company, do they receive additional fees/payment for each meal served?

___Yes (If yes-total cost per meal for all extra fees $_________)

___No

___Don’t know

50) Please describe these aspects of your school district:

Grade levels taught: _____________________

Number of schools: _____________________

Number of students: ________________________

Number of School Days per year ______________________

Number of meals served per day______________________

51) Who is the contact person for your district for any follow up questions?(Please provide Name, Title, Email and Phone Number)

52) For the Person Giving The Survey - What Is your contact information?(Please provide Name, Title, Email and Phone Number)

Thank you very much for your assistance in conducting this meal survey in your school district.

If you want to share the results of your survey, we would be very interested in receiving the information. You can email us the responses you received or scan and email the results of your survey to:

forallthekids@gmail.com

Fax the survey to us at (206) 312-1612

Please email us if a school district refused to answer the survey questions.

This is the “Short” version of the survey. If you want to take additional time (15 minutes) to get more detailed responses from your school district, please use the “Long Version” of our survey.

This is a series of questions designed to evaluate the nature of alternate meal service (meals served to students who have parents with negative meal payment accounts) in ELEMENTARY school districts across the country. The survey should take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

The questions will relate to the financial and operational aspects of your school’s food service operations, and we greatly appreciate your assistance in helping us gather the most complete information possible.

At the end of the survey we’ll ask for your name and contact information; but we won’t use your name without asking your permission first.

To begin, call your school district child nutrition service office or food service office and ask to speak with someone familiar with the process for handling past due payments on student meal accounts.

9) How do you identify the students who will receive the alternate meal? (Please check all that apply)

___Keypad entry

___Different lunch card for alternate meal students

___Check marks, stickers, or other alterations to lunch cards

___At the cash register or at the front of the line

___Don’t know

___Other (please describe below)

10) Does the regular meal, if served by mistake, get physically taken from the child if they should have been served the alternate meal?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

11) If a regular meal is taken from a child, is it disposed of in the child’s presence?

___Yes

___No

___Meals are not taken from child

___Don’t know

12) What happens when a student, with a negative balance, who would normally get the alternate meal, brings cash to pay for one meal?

___The child can purchase a regular meal with a cash payment.

___The cash is applied to balance owed and the child is served an alternate meal at NO CHARGE. ___The cash is applied to balance owed and the child is served an alternate meal and charged for the alternate meal.

13) Is the alternate meal a reimbursable meal under the National School Lunch Program? If yes, how much money do you receive from your State and the Federal government for each reimbursable meal? Federal reimbursement State reimbursement

Full Pay $______________ $______________

Reduced Pay $______________ $______________

Free Lunch $______________ $______________

___Alternate meal not reimbursable

14) Do you get reimbursed by your State and the Federal Government, if you DO NOT CHARGE the student’s account for the alternate meal?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

15) If you serve an alternate meal, is the meal a nutritionally complete meal?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

16) When all students have received their lunch, are leftover hot food items or other non-spoiled food items thrown away?

___Yes

___Don’t know

___No (If the answer is no, please describe how the food is re-used below)

17) Does your District employ a food services consulting or management company? If yes, who?

___Yes (If yes, what is the Company’s name_________________________)

___No

___Don’t know

18) If you employ a food services consulting or management company, how many consultants do you have and how much are they paid?

_______________ Number of consultants

$______________________ Total paid per year for all consultants

___None employed

19) What is the current total debt for meals owed in your school district?

$_____________________

20) What happens with the debt owed when the student transfers out of your school district (due to promotion/graduation or moving away)?

21) What was last year’s write off for debt by your school district for unpaid meals?

$______________________

22) Does your District have a written alternate meal policy?

___Yes (If yes, is it a School Board policy? _____ Yes ______ No)

___No

___Don’t know

23) Do you have a School Board policy for collecting unpaid debt?

___Yes

___No

___Don’t know

24) Please describe these aspects of your School District:

Grade levels taught: _____________________

Number of schools: _____________________

Number of students: ________________________

Number of School Days per year: ______________________

Number of meals served per day: ______________________

25) Who is the contact person for your district for any follow up questions?(Please provide Name, Title, Email and Phone Number)

So that's where we are for today-we have news about Speaker Nuñez' interest (and please do send him an encouraging email), we have several options for retuning the survey results, we know to whom we should direct the surveys, and of course, we have the surveys themselves.

So if you feel that punishing children with a "government cheese sandwich" because their parents owe money is a bad idea, and you’d like to help a group of parents who want to stop the practice nationwide; here’s an opportunity to get the ball rolling, and if you could help, they (and I) would be most appreciative.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

I come before you today with an amazing story of drifting stuff that proves the truth of the saying “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

A story that, in more than one way, reminds us all that we are far more connected than we might otherwise believe.

A story, believe it or not, that centers around lost toys and shoes-and a story that has become perhaps the most serendipitous episode in the history of oceanography.

“URGENT. Vessel proceeding LSATAC in heavy, confused swell with approximate height 8-9 meters. Wind approximately 30-40 knots on the port quarter. Departure GM was 6.0 meters [vessel’s center of gravity]. Both stabilizers were deployed. Speed approximately 19 knots. At 2018 LT [6:18 p.m. local time] – 0418 UTC December 15th, vessel took two very heavy rolls, approximately 20 degrees to each side very fast, which caused 10 containers to fall overboard and 6 others to capsize. Position: 39°53’N, 124°44’W. U.S. Coast Guard Humbolt Bay Group informed on VHF radio immediately after incident. All boxes loaded in Bay 66, port side Rows 06 to 16 in KAO for TAC discharge. Rows 4-15 were loaded with LSA cargo.”

The thing is, oceanographers know more about deep current flows than they do about the currents at the ocean’s surface. As it turns out, the best way to study the currents is to release a floating object at a known point...and see where it ends up.

It’s not easy, as you might expect-only about 2% of “drift bottles” or “drift cards” (the scientific names for “floating objects we sent away on purpose”) released are ever recovered; and the total numbers released are relatively small. In fact, the chart located on the linked page shows only 663 bottles recovered in the North Pacific from 1960 to 1966 (a typical release today is 500-1000 bottles). Here’s more from 1940’s and ‘50’s Australian research.

But on the night of December 15th, 2002, when the spilled containers broke open, 33,000 new oceanographic measuring tools were released into the Pacific Ocean, in the form of Nike EZW men’s basketball shoes.

By January of 2003 John Anderson of Forks, Washington had found two of the shoes-a 10.5 and an 8.5. Both are left shoes. Additional reports of 14 more Nikes were made during the next week, and it was determined that the shoes had drifted 850 nautical miles in 72 days-from northern California to the Queen Charlotte Islands.

At this point in the story, allow me to introduce Dr. Curtis C. Ebbesmeyer, “retired” oceanographer, and W. James Ingraham Jr., of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Working together with a network of beachcombers (are you reading Beachcombers’ Alert?), they have managed to use the data from these recoveries to fine tune the OSCURS (Ocean Surface CURrent Simulator) model used to predict ocean current flows at the surface.

Now that’s a pretty cool story, but it’s hardly the coolest of the “accidental drift bottles” stories.

This one is.

On the very stormy night of January 10th, 1992, where the 45th Parallel meets the International Date Line (a bit south of the Aleutian Islands, a bit west of the Kamchatka Peninsula), 28,800 plastic tub toys were accidentally released into the distant Pacific from a container that slipped off a ship (one of as many as 50 that may be adrift in the seas at any one time) headed from China to Tacoma, Washington.

And in the summer of 2007, having traveled 17,000 miles across the world’s oceans, these plastic ducks, turtles, beavers, and frogs are going to visit the UK.

And that’s not even the most amazing part.This is the most amazing part:

The toys accomplished this feat by traveling across the Arctic, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, as part of the pack ice.

How could this happen?

First, the toys had to get to Alaska, and 10 months after washing overboard, near Sitka, Alaska, they did. (About 400 have been recovered in the Sitka area over the years.) At that point, however, there were some options for the toys.

One option was to be caught up in the “Subpolar Gyre”, a rotating current that carries objects on a 6800 mile circuit from Alaska to Siberia and back more or less every three years-and seems to have carried some of the toys for as many as five “circuits” around the Gyre (there’s a Subpolar Gyre in the Atlantic as well, and we’ll be talking about it later); another was to get carried through the Bearing Straits into the Chukchi Sea -and a third option was to be caught in the Subtropical Gyre, which is how Walt Pich ended up finding a beaver and a frog on Hawaii’s Lanai Island in March of 1997.

And some of those plastic toys did journey first into the Bering Strait, and next the Chukchi Sea (a 3500 mile journey from the point of the original spill), across the northern coast of Alaska, until they hit the Artic pack ice. Now you might think that this would be the end of the story; but it turns out that the pack ice travels on its own journey past the North Pole, passing above the Siberian coast, until the ice, and its tub toys, emerged into the open ocean east of Greenland in 2003.

Let’s pause in our travelogue for a moment, and return to our discussion of oceanography. The toys have been useful, for starters, in testing the OSCURS model’s estimates of current, speed, and windage adjustments that were made as the toys completed each cycle of the Gyre. The Grye’s habit of depositing a few of the flock on Alaska’s beaches more or less on schedule, with the assistance of the Nike spill for confirmation, has turned out to be the source of a major portion of the scientific world’s available ocean current data as it relates to the Pacific.

But what about the Atlantic?

When we last left the toys, it was 2003 and the newly freed flotilla was drifting south, with Greenland to their right, and Scandinavia to the left; and it was time to meet the North Atlantic Sub-Polar Gyre. Rather than being captured by the Gyre, and “stalled” in the North Atlantic; the flotilla made it all the way past the United States East Coast, took a U-turn a bit north of Cuba, and...well, first, let’s address a point now before we lose the chance.

The flotilla made it all the way past the United States East Coast.Despite the Gulf Stream.

This suggests that what I understood about the movement of deep-ocean currents versus surface currents is even less than I would have thought; had you asked me a week ago.

So back to the ducks.

They are on the home stretch of a run to Ireland, and by extension Scotland and the Western UK, because they are moving into the grasp of the North Atlantic Current; which should carry the toys to either the Norweigan coast or a westward trip across the Atlantic-and another likely rendezvous with the US and Canada.

This is hardly the only-or the largest- of the “scientific spillages”, There have been spills of hockey gloves, lots more shoes, and (my favorite) an Atlantic spill of 4.7 million Legos.

Which bring us to a final comment about connectivity: I became aware of this story as a result of a posting on Colin Campbell’s “Adelaide Green Porridge Café” (“a nice place to live”, he reports). The Australian site linked me to a London newspaper which told me about a story that’s going on off the coast of Alaska-which isn’t all that far from my own home. These are amazing times, indeed.

So if you find yourself, this summer, in Kilkee, or Ballyshannon, or Stornoway-or Sitka, for that matter-get down to the beach and see if you can’t find a toy.